


Cold, happy, tired.

by Frangipanidownunder



Category: The X-Files
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-11
Updated: 2019-02-11
Packaged: 2019-10-26 02:39:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 707
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17737436
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Frangipanidownunder/pseuds/Frangipanidownunder
Summary: Post FTF tiny fic to include the words cold, happy and tired.





	Cold, happy, tired.

She is literally senseless. The cold is so raw she cannot see, hear, feel, smell or taste. She is a shivering wreck of skin and bone hovering over her partner who is a deadweight on the ice floor. Is he still breathing? She can’t feel her fingers enough to move them to his pulse-points. His lips are purplish-blue, like the inside of a seashell. The snow is so fiercely white it stabs at her eyes but tears won’t come. It’s too cold. She knows her lashes are frozen. She knows they have to get out of here. But how does she move him when she is so numb?

For a minute or two she is suspended, inert. Fear, muscle pain, bone ache, burning cold prevent her from moving, from working out a rescue plan. If she could laugh, she would let out an ironic chuff at the idea that she should be organising their way out, when it doesn’t seem that long ago that she was falling to the floor in Mulder’s apartment building and fighting to keep herself from unconsciousness. She knows she’s been rescued. But whatever happened after that has been mercifully lost in the foggy swirl of surreal images in her mind.

She can recall his expression though. Standing before her in that chamber, willing her to breathe. His lips parted, his eyes wide with a mix of terror and happiness. Wet hair flopping over his face. He had saved her and himself - the relieved note in his voice told her that. In that moment, a tiny speck of time between them, she knew she loved him. Irrefutably. The thought flashed through her mind, a bolt of reality. It warmed her chest, spurred her on.

Oh, she’s always known he is heroic, a real old-fashioned gallant. He has pitted his life on his beliefs. Her life, sometimes. But in that moment, she was damsel-like in her relief. She was overwhelmingly, unbelievably, princess-in-the-tower grateful to again be on the receiving end of one of his valiant quests.

And then the craft. Rising before them. Was that real? Mulder’s look of wonder told it he believed so. But then that was his MO. Believe first.

“Scully! You gotta see this.” The desperation in his voice spilled into her ears over the roar of the craft.

It took every effort to lift her head and speak. “I see it,” she said. She did see something. And she felt something again. That same spreading feeling of love, crawling through her veins as she watched him, his beautiful face open up at the sight. She didn’t care if it was real or another fake. In that moment, she just loved him. She just wanted to tell him. To yell over the screech of the engines that she, Dana Scully loved Fox Mulder.

Then he closed his eyes and his head fell to the frozen ground. But she knew she’d given him enough. Enough of the strength of his beliefs to be able to take his foot off the gas.

He wakes after the tenth shaking of his shoulders. He tries to cough but his airways are too cold, so he just splutters and his saliva hits her face. She doesn’t care. It means he’s alive.

“Mulder, we have to move.”

He can’t speak, but he blinks slowly and she feels the rush of love again.

“Let me help you,” she says and he tries to roll off her lap with her gentle push but ends up rocking back towards her, bumping her chest with his forehead. He gasps and then manages to cough, clearing his throat and lungs. This seems to release the handbrake in his body and he finds the strength to struggle to all fours, panting.

Her arm over his shoulders anchors them both against the howling wind. Snow begins to pelt at them again. Bitter, stinging flakes. Their faces are pushed together and she’s ecstatic when she realises she can feel the rasp of his stubble against her cheek. He must feel it too, because he turns towards her, eyes wide in surprise. 

“Thank you, Mulder,” she says and her heart thrums as his lips finally seek hers in a whisper, a promise of a kiss.


End file.
